Possible Programming Flaw in Excel

Hello! I'm a database guy who recently prepared a rather sophisticated Excel algorithm to handle multi-dimensional analyses for pattern-recognition applications for advanced loyalty programs. A part of this algorithm involved a rather simple matter: typing a column and row ID into a cell, and then dragging it downwards to create a column of 100 cells.

If you do this, beginning with P1 - for example - the subsequent cells read P2, P3, P4, etc., all the way to the final cell which is P100. And, each subsequent cell is in its proper order, from 1 to 100.

But amazingly, this does not happen if the starting cell is Q1. Subsequent cells soon lose their consecutive order.

I currently use Excel 2010. Therefore I checked to see if this program flaw existed also on an old Excel 2003 version - and it did!

Then I emailed several friends, asking them to check this flaw out on their computers (one friend was from Denmark). Their Excel programs also contained the flaw.

So now I am reporting this flaw to the rest of you. Please verify it - or not - on your own computer. It's simple to run this test. Hopefully Microsoft will fix it, as it has apparently been around for a long time. For my programs, this would have resulted in huge financial losses to my clients if I had not noticed it.

Thank you,

James Kowalick

That would be fine, of course, if all the other alpa-numerical combinations which indicate column-row addresses were not used for just that purpose (for matrix calculations in multi-dimensional systems). However, they are used for this and for other purposes, and it just so happens that only one of the columns - column Q - doesn't work or gives different results from all the other columns. At best, this problem represents a contradiction: using column Q for more than one purpose - as determined by the programmers.

When all other columns or rows act the same for a user who is "dragging" a cell in a certain direction to fill the cells with numbers in sequence -and where only one cell does not behave in this way: I call that poor judgment, if not a programming 'flaw'.

The number of Excel users who use Excel's Data Analysis package would not be happy to experience this 'contradiction' within their high-end programs, because it could result in appreciable financial loss to them, as it would have for me, had I not noticed the anomaly. Admittedly most Excel users are unaffected by this because they may not use 'dragging cells' in their work. But what about the users who do?